


manchester dreaming of barcelona

by SixPonderous



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-25 16:12:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10767795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SixPonderous/pseuds/SixPonderous
Summary: They were in some kind of love, once.





	1. september, i remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saltstreets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/gifts).



> Prompt: Pep isn't sure if he likes or dislikes the new, humble Jose.
> 
> I took some liberties with the timeline here, but I did my best to keep it as true-to-life as possible.
> 
> (I will fight and die for this ship.)

They were young and in some kind of love, once.

José Mourinho would be the first to admit that his initial attraction to Pep Guardiola was because of the other man’s presence on the pitch—the captain, the Catalan man whose veins pulsed with the Blaugrana-- just as much as it was the preoccupation he had with Pep’s dark eyes and the cocky set of his lips.

(The lips that he’d kiss—gently, harshly, longingly, _pathetically_ —until the red morning sky set Barcelona alight on the day of rest.)

Attraction was simple, was easy. Jose knew what he liked—beautiful men, beautiful women, beautiful food, and football.

He knew how to get what he wanted, and it would serve him well. Getting Pep in his bed hadn’t been a challenge. All Jose did was stand a little too close when they discussed the game on the sidelines and give him intentional glances under his eyelashes at the taller boy and one evening after a 4-0 victory at home to Mallorca, pull Captain Guardiola against him in the abandoned locker room and they fell against each other, all lips and tongue and the heady press of hard bodies.

(“I want you.” Pep murmured into the shell of Jose’s ear, breathless, when Jose was inside of him. His black hair was strung together with sweat, pupils impossibly dark. Jose pushed forward and Pep’s head fell back against the pillow with a long groan. Jose’s heart skipped a beat.)

Pep smiled lazily down at Jose from across the room, feeling refreshingly sore. He stretched, watching Jose’s eyes flick to the exposed skin of his abs while he dressed himself. Jose chuckled while he tugged on his boxers that he had found in a heap on the other side of the room.

“Do you,” It was just as much of a question as it was a statement. Jose cleared his throat and looked away. Self-explanatory.

Pep ran his fingers through his dark hair and laughed. “Yeah. Again. Tomorrow?”

Jose kissed him on his way out, but Pep’s mouth was insistent and greedy and his blunt fingernails were knotted in Jose’s hair and the goodbye was delayed for another hour.

It was always tomorrow. An expected part of their time together that they actively sought out, initially in paranoia and eventually into a comfortable routine. Jose loved it, loved being the dirty little secret of his golden boy. Jose was still only a translator, annoyingly, but his dreams were of titles for a team of his own and of his name, everywhere.

Pep would readily admit there was something special about the helpless half-smile that Jose would hide from the cameras when Pep pointed to him after scoring a goal. And if that something special meant that he had to lie through his teeth to his mother on the phone when she asked if he had met a nice girl yet, it was worth it.

He wondered sometimes if Jose got the same kind of phone calls. He always forgot to ask.

It wasn’t unusual for Pep to carpool with Jose to practice to the point where no one on the team questioned the time they spent together. The smart boys. Probably think they’re too good for us idiots. Jokes. Casual _marícons_ thrown around as a joke to the new boys. It made Pep all the more anxious.

(“You aren’t a player, Jose. You wouldn’t understand.” Pep was unusually harsh, blinded by the stress of the knock to his leg he took in the previous day’s match, stretchered off in front of the pitying Camp Nou. It only infuriated him more when Jose looked at him patiently, a reversal of their roles. Jose ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Maybe not, but I do understand you.” Pep took a sharp, deep breath and joined Jose on the sofa. “I’m sorry.” He murmured reluctantly, the anger still simmering in his gut but lessened. Jose put a hand on his good knee reassuringly and squeezed. He offered Pep a kind smile. “You’re going to have to try better than that to hurt my feelings.”)

When it wasn’t sex, most of their time was spent talking about football. Watching matches. Arguing about football. Betting on national teams. Strangely, it was easy. Pep was always caught off guard by surprise on how easily they fit together, in agreement and in disagreement, and in the most dangerous kind of relationship either of them could have.

Jose slept face down in his pillow and wouldn’t wake up if there was an explosion outside, but always woke up to his alarm and was wide awake immediately. Pep snored and sprawled out when he slept, but Jose never noticed, even when he woke up with a bruise from a kick. His look of confusion made Pep laugh uncontrollably, and oh. That was something special.

(Pep loved Jose’s mouth on his cock. He was incredible at it, like attacking and seducing it in the single-minded way he did most things. He willed himself out of a gag reflex too—a particularly happy surprise for Pep one night—all the components of a champion cocksucker. Jose preened under the praise in spite of his pride. It was worth it for the complete control he had over Pep in the moments he was coming hard down his throat, spilling over his lips.)

Some nights, Pep kissed Jose’s forehead, eyelids, cheeks, softly while they shared the one good armchair. Jose was sitting in close proximity, cold toes underneath the heat of Pep’s thighs.

“You think too loudly.” Jose noted quietly, cupping Pep’s cheek and skimming his thumb across the curve of the Spaniard’s lower lip. Pep smiled wanly. Jose started talking about anything that came to his mind. About Portugal. About the time he briefly was in business school, which got a startled laugh from Pep. About his childhood dog that he made a point to spoil. Pep’s smile grew wider and wider still, until the lines across his forehead, deepened from stress, smoothed out.

Pep kissed him again, softer still. Their lips just barely met. “Thank you.”

Jose’s heart was pounding a tattoo. “I,” He stopped. Looked into his lover’s dark eyes. Did he only notice now how deep they pulled him? His heart was caught in his throat and he was overwhelmed. He loved him then, stronger than he had loved anything.

Somehow, it didn’t frighten him.

(Jose got Pep a bottle of particularly expensive wine for his birthday the first year they were together. They ended up both drinking it since their birthdays were only about a week or so apart, and because Pep wasn’t sure if they were _like that_ yet or at all, really. Jose drank too much too fast wasn’t able to keep himself hard that night, which Pep only mocked him once or twice for with a telltale grin across his face. Jose made up for it the next morning. Pep ended up tossing an unwrapped book of Catalan poetry at Jose’s head on his birthday the next week because it was all he had on hand to give. Jose was delighted. Pep was embarrassed.)

Jose looked up from the book one evening. “Estimat.” He rolled around his tongue. It was a strange word, pronounced differently than Portuguese. He knew he said it wrong and tried again. “ _Estimat_.”

“Not quite.” Pep replied. “The ending, it is different. Estimat.”

“I can guess what it means, but I don’t know it exactly. My Catalan is only average.”

“It’s a word for lover,” he smiled a little, behind his hand. “An older one, more poetic? I don’t hear it very often. You’d get made fun of.”

Jose gave him an enigmatic look. “You like it?”

He paused. “I do, actually. It’s a perfectly good word.”

(Pep was deliciously greedy. Jose loved to tease him, to slowly press his fingers into him and groan when Pep demanded, not begged, for Jose to fuck him. He unraveled just so easily, his thoughts stopped going 800 kilometers an hour in the moments when Jose’s lips were at his pulse point on his neck, breathing hot and pounding into him. “Come for me, estimat. Let me hear you.” Pep choked on a sob and allowed himself to obey while Jose purred, mouthing hotly at his ear.)

Love was exponentially less simple than fooling around. It robbed Jose and Pep of the opportunity of choice: of pretending like their arrangement was only one of homoerotic convenience and casual companionship until they would eventually move on, marry nice women and return to some semblance of footballer normalcy. It was to their mutual detriment that the exact terms and conditions of their relationship was never formally outlined. Volatile, like only being a goal ahead in a must-win match. As far as Jose was concerned, he wasn’t sleeping around with anyone but Pep. Pep wasn’t sleeping around either. Where would they find the time? The formality and seriousness of love declarations in a sport where the only thing that is consistent is the inconsistency was dangerous.

Four years, three seasons. Two managers. Lots of signings. New blood.

(They openly embraced on the grounds of the Camp Nou with cameras and crowds present. Someone clapped Pep on the shoulder but he didn’t know who it was, and brushed him off because Jose was coming towards him, openly beaming in the way only titles could conjure, and he took Pep in his arms. “Carinyo, oh querido.” he had said, tossing him around like he was a toy. Pep’s laughter was loud and genuine, his heart almost bursting from the fullness he felt and it was as if his lips ached from _not_ kissing him.)

(Pep loved him. Simple as that.)

Jose threw his windbreaker in Pep’s small entryway in disgust when he finally returned from an administrative meeting. He loathed them more than anything. He wasn’t stupid enough to tell Pep that his beloved _Més Que Un Club_ ran nightmarishly seventy percent of the time. Jose wasn’t important enough as the _translator_ to do anything other than sit back and quell his superiority complex. The reminder was enough to make him angry.

Pep wasn’t in the living room. Jose stormed into the bedroom and Pep made a panicked sound and jumped. “Jose,” he managed, smiling awkwardly while he stood in front of his desk. Guarding.

Jose raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t caught you cheating on me, have I?”

Pep barked a laugh and made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “I am sure you will find that I am the only one in here.” Miraculously, the tension headache threatening to burst open Jose’s forehead faded to only an annoyance. Jose smiled for the first time in what felt like hours.

“But I have caught you doing something.” He slumped onto the bed, still in a full suit and dress shoes. Pep laughed sheepishly and sat next to him, running his fingers through Jose’s thick hair. Jose groaned miserably and leant into the touch like a cat.

“Come on,” Pep leaned over and tried to pull off Jose’s suit jacket. “This will wrinkle and you won’t be happy about it, and somehow it will be my fault.”

Jose grumbled and stood up. He toed off his shoes and socks, shrugged off the jacket and pants and hung them in Pep’s closet. He collapsed onto the bed with renewed vigor in his boxer briefs.

Pep’s heart caught in his throat. Jose put Pep’s hand back on his head and Pep obediently continued the scalp massage.

“I draw, sometimes.” Pep murmured after a moment. Jose blinked up at him.

“That’s it? Let me see.”

Pep shook his head, an uncharacteristic flush across his cheeks. “No, I’m not good at all.”

Jose sat up with a groan and rest his forehead on Pep’s shoulder, peppering it with kisses. “What do you draw, then? Give me a mental picture.”

Pep’s flush only deepened in spite of himself. He cleared his throat. “If I just need to get my mind off of things, I’ll draw objects on my desk or try to perfectly draw my hands, or something like that. I only use pencil.”

Jose pawed at Pep’s threadbare shirt and Pep took it off with a laugh. Jose loved that Pep’s blushes blossomed all over his chest, concealed only slightly by the forest of hair that trailed from his chest down his navel. “Mm, I think that maybe you would show me if it was only that.” Jose nipped Pep’s exposed collarbone. Pep followed Jose’s lips with a soft whine.

“Kiss me properly already—ah!” Pep let out a helpless sound when Jose crawled into his lap with an impish grin. “Tell me, Josep.” He rocked his hips and Pep shivered, clasping his strong thighs to steady himself. “Let’s take care of your headache first.”

Jose rode him until Pep was stupid and keening pathetically in pleasure, holding down the Catalan’s wrists and controlling him with the skillful gyrating of his hips— _who taught him how to do that_?-- until all he could think about was _Jose_ , all that was on his lips was _Jose_. Jose grit his teeth and came violently onto Pep’s chest, and he didn’t drop his pace. Jose tightened around him _just so_ and Pep was spilling into the condom with an unfettered cry.  Jose’s lips curled into a grin, still fully erect.

“It seems I am not done yet.” He said, saccharine sweet. He lifted himself off Pep’s cock and chucked away the condom before taking Pep’s softening cock into his mouth, coaxing his reluctant body back into arousal. Pep’s legs buckled and he made an embarrassing sound of either protest or encouragement, he really couldn’t tell himself. Jose’s eyes were locked onto Pep’s and Pep thought for a moment that he was going to die, he was so oversensitive.

“Jose- I can’t—“

“You will.” Jose was right, somehow—Pep was hard again and aching. Jose beckoned Pep on top of him with a curled finger and a smirk. “Fuck me.” It was as close to begging as he was going to do.

Pep looked hurriedly around for a condom but Jose was already guiding him inside, still open and pliant and Pep’s whole body shuddered violently from the sensation. He never had Jose like this before and he was _exquisitely_ hot to the point of almost-pain. He pounded Jose so hard the bedframe was knocking into the walls and for a few moments he had Jose biting back pathetic sounds. They kissed properly for the first time, open mouth and teeth clacking. Jose’s tightened around him and Pep was _coming until he was dry_ , loudly whimpering while he spilled into Jose the little come he had. Jose was coming too until his body loosened completely.

Pep seriously thought he was going to black out when he slowly withdrew from Jose.

“I draw you a lot,” Pep’s voice cracked. “It’s there. On the desk.”

Jose was exhausted himself, but the headache and the meeting were certainly a distant memory by now. He put his boxer shorts back on, legs unsteady, and went to sit at Pep’s chair gingerly. The small desk was littered with plain and graph paper. At the bottom of the pile, a finished-looking sketch of what had to be Jose sleeping on his side with his back to the viewer, locks of hair askew and clear, wiry muscles slightly obscured by the thin summer blanket. A lover’s drawing.

How much time had he spent on this? Jose swallowed to relieve his dry throat and felt his face heat up, heart stuttering pathetically in his chest.

“Pep, I—“ he turned around and Pep was sound asleep. Jose ran his fingers through his hair and laughed weakly in a way he only managed to do when he was alone. On his way to get a glass of wine from the kitchen he stopped and pressed a kiss to Pep’s lips.

“You…”

(He kept the picture. If Pep had noticed it had gone missing, he didn’t say anything.)

“You know,” Pep threw his equipment in the back of Jose’s car and fell into the passenger’s seat. Studied nonchalance. “We’ve been.” He waved his and studiously avoided eye contact. “Doing this. For three years.”

Jose would have been surprised, maybe, if he wasn’t absolutely aware that on this date, they made a quick mess of the locker room. “Is that so?” he gave Pep a languid look while he fastened his seatbelt. “Then we should celebrate.”

Relieved, Pep grinned. “Lead the way, old man.” Pep kissed his stubble-littered cheek when Jose grumbled about only being thirty six, fuck off.

They got dinner at a small Italian place on the outskirts of town where the chance of Pep being recognized was lessened. Instead of the usual wine, Jose put in an order for champagne.

“Cheers, estimat.” Jose murmured, eyes sparkling. Pep grinned, warm from the alcohol and the flawless Catalan pronunciation, and tapped his flute to his. “Sappy, Jose.”

“If only today.” Jose acquiesced, taking the hand under the table that had been offered to him and squeezed it gently. Pep’s answering caress was proof he didn’t mind at all. A helpless smile blossomed across Pep’s face.

They fucked nice and slow. Pep’s breath was hot against Jose’s lips, foreheads touching, slick with sweat. Pep slammed his hips into Jose’s tight heat and Jose couldn’t control the helpless moans that slipped through his lips and Pep was living for it. “Do you love me?” Pep hissed into the curve of Jose’s ear, impulsively, biting just a little too hard. Jose shuddered and grit his teeth, looking Pep in his blown out eyes. “More than anything.”

Maybe that wasn’t true but in that moment it absolutely was. Pep’s hips stuttered in rhythm and came with a loud growl inside him, fingers digging into his skin, seeking respite. Jose couldn’t control the animal sound that escaped his lips when Pep, somehow still hard, rode Jose through his own orgasm.

Jose let out a helpless laugh when Pep collapsed against him, oversensitive and exhausted. Pep couldn’t control his grin either. “Don’t think I’m done with you.”

“I’d be a bit insulted if you were.” Jose’s fingers absently traced over the marks he scratched onto Pep’s back and shoulders and kissed his forehead.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Pep badly wanted to ask if Jose had meant it, but the question died in his throat when Jose stretched against the sheets and looked at him with blissed out, lidded eyes and a crooked, knowing smile. Pep was staring without shame. A few of Jose’s black hairs had gone grey by now and his brow seemed permanently furrowed. Three years was football ten, and Pep was still absolutely smitten by this bastard. He leaned in and kissed him, a little awkwardly since they were both smiling.

Jose’s heart was fluttering stupidly in his chest. Pep’s hair was getting long enough to curl around his ears delicately and he looked so young when he wasn’t worrying about football.

It would be strange to tell Jose that he was beautiful. Pep hadn’t ever said anything of the kind before in so many years. Instead, he said “You got semen in your chest hair.”

Jose wrinkled his nose. “Fuck. Join me in the shower?”

Pep didn’t need told twice.

(“Come with me, to Lisbon,” Jose had asked once, after they had fucked. Young and sentimental as he was, he was still relieved when Pep only snorted and shook his head. Jose decided it was the time to stop sharing his bad ideas.)

In the spirit of bad ideas, Jose decided to make a case for the manager position at Barcelona. Hidden from Pep, in his own flat, he agonized over his proposal, his presentation, fleshing out his ideas for a direction for his vision of a new Barcelona, a Barcelona that was just as much Jose’s as it was Pep Guardiola’s. A shared kingdom, or something. Jose wanted grandeur.

He even bought a new suit for his meeting. Sleek and black. Fitted, not off-the-rack. Hugo Boss. Something about it that called for a chunky, expensive watch and shiny shoes.

(And, perhaps, a ring to wear on his left hand.)

( _The king of all bad ideas_.)

( _It’s been four years and he hasn’t grown sick of you yet._ )

Pep found the suit in the back of his closet when Jose was in the shower. He raised his eyebrows curiously and ran a finger down the lapel. Jose emerged with a towel slung low around his waist, just slightly below a bruise Pep had sucked into the skin near his hipbone. He licked his lips absentmindedly.

“Jose, what’s the occasion? Getting married?” he ribbed gently, though he felt stung somewhere in his chest just by implying it. Jose kissed his cheek reassuringly, but his grin was so excitable it was contagious.

“Not without you, meu coração.” His tone light enough for it to pass as a joke, but the image stuck in his head of Pep in a suit just as nice as his own in the front of church pews waiting for Jose to finally—

He flushed crimson and was lucky it could pass for getting out of the hot water. “I have a meeting, with Barcelona’s board tomorrow.”

Pep’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, his own nonchalance betrayed by his rapidly stuttering heartbeat. “Do you really? What for?”

( _Maybe a silver ring, because Pep was always gold_.)

“It’s a secret I promise I won’t keep for long,”

()

He fails for the first, but not last, time in his professional career.  
  
Jose goes to Lisbon alone and neglected to mention he wasn’t coming back to Barcelona at all. The salty winds of Portugal felt like the home that Barcelona never was but the new air in the Stadium of Light was novel. Electric. Filled with the seductive promise of greatness.

Head Manager Jose Mourinho.

When he wasn’t in the Stadia de Luz, he sat at his flat and immersed himself in anything football he could manage, strategically avoiding any information from the Spanish league.

Feeling like an asshole got easier as the weeks went by. Pep didn’t call. Jose didn’t either.

Jose would be a bad liar if he said he didn’t miss it: missed the tanned skin against white sheets, sitting in front of Pep’s old television watching both current and old matches. But Jose was no fool—Barcelona was a city of love, but Jose’s real mistress was football. And no Catalan captain could get in the way of his quest for greatness.

And yet, he couldn’t suppress his juvenile disappointment when the only phone calls he received were either family or business. He didn’t have friends other than Rui, who he saw most days of the week.

Jose was a religious man, perhaps surprisingly as God looked down upon the prideful, the lustful, the greedy and the vain. It was difficult for Jose to tell if the voice in the back of his head telling him to repent for wronging his ex-lover was his own conscience (which coincidentally, only ever appeared when his baser needs were involved) or if it was God himself.

At weekly confession, Jose had the mind to mention it.

He knelt and made the sign of the cross before entering the old wooden booth and drew the curtain shut. He rustled uncomfortably. “Forgive me, Padre, for I have sinned.” Without waiting for assent from the priest, Jose plowed onwards.

“I love a man. I guess that’s the first sin but that part doesn’t matter anymore, as I have not spoken with him in months.”

Thirteen months now. When did it get to be over a year?

(Jose cursed himself for still feeling. Out of sight was supposed to be out of mind, but he imagined Pep scoffing at some of the more modern Portuguese architecture, saw men in cashmere sweaters and was filled with the urge to touch. He heard him in the literal silence of the radio, and once or twice woke up, erection straining against his briefs from the phantom touch of his own Midas.)

El Padre was probably used to hearing about it.

He cleared his throat, feeling tight all of a sudden. He let the Father speak onwards, voice low and monotonous.

The prayers of repentance didn’t feel like repentance at all, and Jose left dissatisfied.

(Pep heard Jose left by accident, and didn’t believe it until he drove by Jose’s empty flat, the furniture he didn’t care about set out on the street for the taking. If he had been angry at any point in his illustrious life before, it didn’t compare to the image of the couch- a physical part of their history— abandoned.)

Pep didn’t feel abandoned like an old dog. He felt truly, paralyzingly angry.

(Portugal. Lisbon. Benfica to Porto. Standing and gesticulating wildly in the tech area. First place. Champions League. England. _A special one._ It was so disgustingly right. Pep had no right to be upset. It was only ever about football.)

(And yet. And _yet_.)

He retired and went to Qatar, then Mexico, then Argentina. Coaching badges. Back to Barcelona, the only love who loved him back.

Anonymous sex with dark-haired men with seductive smiles. Never has them more than twice. Pep learns.

The worst thing was being asked about Jose before the Champion’s League match against Inter Milan.

“When he was a translator here in Barcelona, did you see him becoming the great manager he is today?”

“No.” Pep said immediately. “No.” _He certainly wanted to be._ “I didn’t know it. I didn’t have this talent, this view. If I knew at the time I would have told the president to keep him, because this guy is good.” He spoke slowly, choosing his English words deliberately. _Keep him. Keep him with me_. The fantasy.

“Did Barcelona miss something, then?”

“Maybe he’ll come back to manage in the future. Why not?” He shrugged and looked to the next question, relieved to be off the subject. Hearing about Jose these days was exhausting enough as it was without having to prepare himself for a remontada in the second leg of the match.

Jose didn’t mind. When he was asked what he owed to Barcelona, he spoke honestly. That every person he worked with gave him a lot.” _Too much._

They didn’t speak before the game. Jose’s hair was grey. Pep didn’t have much hair anymore himself: concealed it with a shave. He detested the heat that pulsed in his veins, his body vividly recalling the muscle memory of Jose’s mouth, hands, the weight of his cock, the guttural gasps that tore through his lips when he came. He felt Jose’s eyes on him during the match and steadfastly refused to take the bait, only shaking his hand after Barcelona lost the match. He loathed himself.

“Congratulations,” Pep heard himself say, conscious of the many cameras around them. Jose was happy in the way only manic winners are and it felt like a shot to the gut. Despite yelling all game at his Barcelona, his throat felt rough with disuse.

“Better luck next time.” Jose did not care about softening his words for anyone. He was the winner, it was he who was moving on in the Champion’s League, not Pep.

Jose wins the treble.

Florentino Perez calls.

Jose returns to Spain in white.

Pep wasn’t sure if he was angrier about that than when he left to begin with and he couldn’t stop himself from picking up the phone and dialing the number that he thought too many times about deleting. He had been drinking something strong, utterly repulsed by the idea of Jose in the white.

“Pep?” Jose asked, leaving Rui’s living room and stepping outside to take the call. His heart stuttered pathetically in his chest.

“How _dare_ you.” Pep hissed. “You spiteful bastard. Is this your idea of revenge? As if beating me in Milan wasn’t enough for you?”

 “You’re drunk.” Jose said. His voice was his distant, press conference voice. It infuriated Pep even more, his knuckles tight against his glass, near the breaking point. “Madrid came calling, and I would have been a fool to turn them down. Believe it or not, the decisions I make for my career have nothing to do with you.”

“Oh, you make that perfectly clear, you fuck.” He knocked back the rest of his scotch and slammed the glass on the table.

(It got much worse, instead of better, when Jose arrived in Spain. Pep falls asleep later and later in the night and wakes up too early. He remembers old upholstery of a thrown-out sofa and his own breath reflecting off his pillow feels like Jose’s when he’s had too much to drink. It happens more and more. He lives alone, as he always had despite growing suspicion from the press, and no matter how large his flat is, it feels too small. He splashes water on his face in the mornings and looks and feels old—the bags under his eyes and the lines across his forehead are deepened, more permanent damage done than what can just be fixed by the summer holiday in only a few short years’ time.)

(He calls Jose paranoid but he is, too.)

(Pep loses what when Jose refers to him as Pep: ever informal, ever conniving. Pep knows the smirks are for him. It’s all for him. Jose needs a rapt audience and Pep was never good at looking away. Another year of nastiness.)

_Jose is el puto jefe. El puto amo._

_He knows me and I know him._

_If he wants to go by things written after the Copa del Rey by friends from the written press or Florentino Pérez, then fine._

_If that matters to him more than our relationship, then that’s up to him. I am not going to justify my words. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth when someone you had a relationship with does what he has done._

Jose gets the news when it breaks with a disparaging laugh from Rui. He watches the interview and laughs darkly. How foolish of him. He was about two sentences away from telling the press room that they fucked.

The Barcelona boys give Pep a standing ovation.

(Jose calls, a hand palming his cock over his sweatpants. It goes to voicemail. “The fucking boss, Pep?” His voice is low in his throat. His tongue flicked over his lower lip. “I think you’re losing your nerve.” There was a beep that indicated Pep picked up the phone, but the tinny of the line was silent except for the occasional audible exhale. Jose properly took himself in hand, slick with his spit. The groan that caught in his throat was unmistakable. “Oh Pep, you think you know me? You think your little show to _my_ cameras was going to get to me? It’s not 1997 anymore, I won’t give in to a—ah, pretty face.” His breath grew shallower the closer he got to his orgasm. Pep had not yet hung up the phone. “We haven’t spoken for longer than we ever did before. But by all means, I’ll leave a bad taste in your mouth any time you want.” The implication of fucking Pep’s throat made him spill across his shirt and around his fist and he growled, low and suggestive. He could hear Pep’s voice hitch over the line, the only audible difference. He lets Pep hang up first, it was only fair. It took a full minute and Jose listened closely on the line for anything, literally anything, and grinned without humor when he heard a telltale breathy sigh and finally a Catalan swearword before the line went dead.)

Without a doubt, it was Pep’s most shameful orgasm of his life. He clenched his eyes so tightly together he saw stars and laughed once, without mirth. Maybe Jose had gotten to him—still, after ten years—but he got to Jose, too. Even better than that, he had no idea Pep was under his skin. A chess match. Your move.

They had been apart much longer than they were ever together. 

Rui calls him _el puto jefe_ for weeks. He laughs with no weight on his conscience.

()

This is how it goes. The details can be found littered across tabloids and in gossip clips of anti-Chelsea pundits. That isn’t what matters.

First, Stamford Bridge welcomes back Jose with open hearts and open arms. Chelsea and Jose Mourinho were objectively a match made in football purgatory. Defensive. Strong on the counterattack. The boys hung on to Jose's every word. Abramovich stayed happy.

Abramovich had all the money in the world, and Jose had a vision.

When Jose landed in London, it was rainy and cold. It felt right, it felt like home.

Young Eden Hazard has the season of his life. John Terry is still willing to kill a man on the pitch if it meant a victory. Diego Costa is ever the bastard, but he scores. Gets the work done.

The prodigal son of Chelsea thanks his new, old home with a Premier League title.

The next season, Chelsea thanks Jose with the sack.

(It had been coming. There was no denying that. Jose was having the worst season of his professional career. Eleventh place.)

(So much for home. So much for Abramovich's prodigal son.)

Pep Guardiola is comfortably away in Munich. It was almost easy. The league title comes as easy to him there as it does in Barcelona. They win the DFB Pokal. Robert Lewandowski scores 5 goals in 9 minutes. No Champion's League, but they do win the domestic.

Pep knows full well that laying low is the opposite of Jose’s style. Manel tells him, with a condescending laugh, that Jose is on a _sabbatical_.

“Have you heard anything so ridiculous? Does sabbatical mean ‘hiding in shame’ now?”

Pep calls.

“Two sacks in a row.” Pep smirks over the line. He doesn't intend to be mean, but Jose can bring out the worst in him. “Think you’re losing your touch?”

Jose doesn’t respond for a long enough time that Pep thinks he might have hung up.

“I hope not.” He’s quiet. There’s a rustling sound.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

“Where are you going?”

Another pause. “Does it matter? Thank you, for your call. I have to go.”

This is new.

Pep finds himself not knowing what to think about Jose for the first time since they met. It’s easier to despise him, to _love_ him, than it was to feel this limbo of regret and pity.

Maybe there was a little affection there, too.

During midweek, Pep started calling more frequently. Jose was still very quiet—but attentive.

“I’ve been watching your boys.”

“Thoughts?”

Jose began cautiously. “…You want to hear them?”

“Just because Abramovich doesn’t appreciate you doesn’t mean I don’t.”

Pity, regret, affection. Repeat.

Twin calls from 0161 numbers.

Manchester.

 _Manchester_.

They followed each other again.

Jose was giddy with excitement, determined to win the league after the Chelsea disaster. He loved a project, and rebuilding Manchester United would be the biggest project of them all.

Pep’s apartment was in United territory. Salford. Surely that meant something.

Jose leant back into his desk chair and dialed Pep’s number. Through the years he still remembered it. Muscle memory.

“Jose Mourinho,” The name rolled off Pep’s tongue with the slightest hint of amusement. Jose imagined him sprawled languidly on a couch with a glass of wine. It was appealing. “For what do I owe the displeasure?”

“No elaborate romantic plans for the night, Josep?”

Pep scowled over the line. “I might.”

“You wouldn’t have answered the phone if you had. Come to my flat tonight.”

Pep’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Why?” It was an accusation, not a question.

“I’m not allowed to invite an old friend for a drink?”

Pep glanced at his wrist. “After midnight? You don’t want a drink.” The _dirty old man_ implication was silent.

“The door will be open for you.” Jose murmured and ended the call, leaving Pep fuming in the dim light of his apartment. But all the same: regret, pity, affection. Amusement. Never a shortage of feelings.

Jose had been downright _strange_ recently and Pep was having trouble ignoring it. He didn’t like this new, false modest Jose Mourinho. Pep had watched his press conference in his office, alone, when it came to light that Ranieri had been sacked. Pep knew the man well enough that the resigned nonchalance was a farce. He was hurt. Maybe he was wronged by Chelsea, but ultimately it was a reminder of his season of shortcomings. Pep was, perhaps, a little surprised Jose cared about loyalty. But football was always different.

Pep opened the door without fanfare and glared at the Portuguese man while he tugged off his scarf and overcoat. “Don’t make me regret coming over here. I’m not playing your fucking games anymore.”

Jose’s finger circled the rim of his wine glass. “No games.” He made a show of looking Pep up and down. “That jacket suits you.” Pep ignored him and poured himself a glass of wine, filling it too generously. Jose rose from the chair and stood behind Pep, hands coming to rest on the other man’s hips. Pep sighed slowly and turned around to face Jose, exasperated. “Can I help you?”

“Well, ideally. Stay with me tonight.”

The resulting flutter in his chest made Pep feel weak. Despite himself, he leant into the gentle caress, eyes closing slowly. Jose’s head rest on the back of Pep’s shoulder. More intimate than Jose had the right to demand.

It would never be easy, but there was something to be said for pretending.

“Alright. Okay.”

Jose grinned, triumphant. Pep turned around and kissed him softly, bringing his arm to rest around the shorter man’s shoulders. When they pulled away, there was something in Jose’s eyes that made Pep uneasy. They weren’t even friends anymore, let alone lovers.

Jose wasn’t stupid. He knew all of this and was currently less inclined to care, since he only sent out the invitation and it was Pep who showed up at all.

“My rules.” Pep cupped Jose’s cheek, looking intensely into his eyes. “You hear me?”

Their lips met again, more intentionally. Jose palmed Pep’s hardening cock through his designer jeans and allowed himself to be stripped of his shirt. A noise escaped his throat when Pep’s fingers skimmed across his chest hair.

“Suck me off.” Pep wasn’t in the mood to let Jose have control. Jose nodded and led him into his small bedroom and knelt between his legs. Pep leaned against the wall and curled his fingers into Jose’s hair.

“I think I like your hair better grey than brown.”

“Conveniently, I think the same of you.” He unzipped his jeans and took Pep into his mouth as if memorizing the weight of him all over again. Pep’s eyes fluttered closed, groaning his approval. “You’ve always been such a good cocksucker, Jose.” A laugh rumbled through Jose’s throat.

Pep pushed Jose onto his back on the bed and prepared him, savoring the sighs that passed through Jose’s lips like they had many years ago. Their eyes were locked, unblinking. A challenge.

“I don’t have condoms.”

“Good. I want to feel you.” _Slut_ , he wanted to hiss. Wanted to make it hurt as much as he wanted it to last, to make him remember and miss him.

He knocked Jose’s knees apart and entered him slowly, watching Jose take him to the hilt like he was made for Pep. A shudder of pleasure tore through Jose’s body. He gripped the back of Pep’s neck with his calloused fingers and pulled him down for a rough kiss, wanton as the sounds of their meeting. It was like a relapse, the addicting feeling of Jose around him made him thrust harder, mercilessly, seeking his own pleasure in his body. Jose took it, pumping his cock furiously. Their mouths shared hot breaths, not quite touching.

“Jose, I’m--“Pep’s rhythm was stuttering. Jose tightened around him as a response and Pep looked at him incredulously and pulled out to mark him on his back with ropes of his come. Jose’s head tipped back against the pillow and came into his fist with a long groan.

Overwhelmed, Pep collapsed on top of him. Jose easily made room in his arms, and Pep didn’t pull away. Jose was softer around the middle than he was nearly twenty years ago and the lines in his face ran deeper now. He looked as exhausted as Pep felt.

Jose leaned in tentatively for a kiss, a moment of sharing breath before Pep cupped his cheek and kissed him back, languid and easy.

Déjà vu. An old dream.

“You’re an old fool.” Pep murmured into the crook of Jose’s neck and shoulder. Jose’s blunt fingernails skimmed across Pep’s back and arms, oddly tender.

“I was a fool when I was young, too.” Jose reminded him softly. “You’re no different.”

“No,” Pep agreed after a moment. “I wish I was. Then I wouldn’t be your midnight booty call.”

Jose laughed. “The phone works both ways, estimat. I’m more than happy to be yours, too.”

“Estimat.” Pep hummed, tasting the word on his tongue and exhaled. “It’s been years since you called me that.”

“You haven’t exactly wanted to hear it. I have a sense of self-preservation, believe it or not.” He was too worn out to be anything but earnest.

Pep barked a laugh. “You’re going to ruin me, Jose.”

Jose grinned crookedly and straddled him. “Well, then we’ll be even.”

(They didn’t miss the sunrise on the day of rest, but in the dim glow of the Manchester morning, they were young men again: carefree, stupid, happy.)

 


	2. may, she will stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jose wants a Catholic wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Optional epilogue for those who also want Jose and Pep to be husbands forever. This is in the process of being edited and finished! (D:)

The decision to get married was, like the rest of their decisions regarding their relationship, never stated outright. It was the natural extension, being in the same city again. Pep wouldn’t admit in a thousand years that the remnants of nervousness about Jose packing up and leaving again influenced his decision to make sure Jose would be bound to him.

Likewise, Jose never mentioned aloud that the ring he gave Pep he had bought in the late 90s.

Jose gave Pep the key to his flat and was unreasonably pleased when Pep’s personal items found their way into his home. It was his toothbrush and cologne first, his books second and clothing third. Jose bought duplicates to keep at Pep’s flat.

(Pep once came home late from staying in his office long after a loss in a sour mood to find Jose had made dinner—now certainly cold and unusual in of itself—and wearing his old Barcelona jersey while he was finalizing their travel plans for two days in Barcelona during international break. One day for the ceremony, the other day for themselves.)

It thrilled him, coming home to find Pep already sitting at the dining room table. He was always pouring over his playbook (kept under lock and key because hey, all is fair in love and football, plus the derby is in only a few months) and watching matches from his old teams on his laptop.

Jose had forgotten what having that connection to past clubs felt like. He had been everywhere, managed so many players. Pep had Munich and Barcelona. It was so clear that he loved all of his old boys. And they loved him.

On edge from an away win in the Europa League, Jose returned home at last to find Pep with a few buttons on his dress shirt undone, sleeves pushed up carelessly past his elbows and week-old stubble. Jose smirked when Pep looked up. “You’re quite the sight for sore eyes.”

Pep leaned back, amused. His tongue flicked out against his bottom lip and Jose’s eyes followed it, feeling arousal pulse through him. “Is that so?”

When Pep Guardiola started wearing a simple golden band around his finger, it became the subject of rabid speculation. Everyone from Lucho at Barcelona to cornering Manchester physios outside their offices were asked if they knew anything about Guardiola’s wife, who he assuredly didn’t currently share a house with as there were reporters outside his house hoping to catch a glimpse of her. She was probably beautiful. A brunette. Maybe she’s English.

Jose wore his thick silver band on his hand but pocketed it during games, interviews and open training. It was too soon for both former bachelor managers to be seen with rings.

“I want a Catholic wedding.” Jose declared not four seconds after Pep joked about getting Jose an ostentatiously large diamond ring for their anniversary to match his ego.

“I think it’s a little late for that. We’ve already been living in sin, my blushing _virginal_ bride.”

Jose sniffed indignantly. “Be subservient to your husband, _Josep.”_

“You’re not my husband yet and that rule only applies to Catholics. Do you want to be married here, in Manchester?” Pep asked, already pulling up a list of venues on Google that did gay weddings for Catholics, and if there was a chance he’d have to be converted or something. That wasn’t happening.

“It should be Barcelona, no?”

Pep smiled helplessly. “I’d like that.” He said softly. Jose leaned over and kissed him sweetly on the corner of his mouth. Pep turned his head slightly to kiss his lips. Jose exhaled, their noses touching.

“I love you.” He said after a comfortable silence. Pep smiled crookedly. “I know.”

Jose took a deep breath and averted Pep’s questioning gaze.

“I have something I should have mentioned a long, long time ago.”

He looked so serious that the joke Pep could have made got stuck in his throat. “Okay.”

Jose crossed the room for his own locked safe that contained his match notes and a small black box. He retrieved it and toyed with it in his hands. Pep’s eyes were wide.

“This is for you.” Jose murmured. He decided to do the right thing and knelt before Pep and opened the box to reveal a simple golden band. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth when Pep silently slipped it on his ring finger.

“I bought this,” Jose said, quietly reaching for Pep’s hand and kissing each of his fingers, stopping on the ring. Pep’s heart was pounding wildly and he stealthily wiped away a single tear. Jose took another deep breath. “In 1999.”

“What the fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“What the _fuck_.”

Jose braced himself for a very well deserved slap, but it never came. Pep was clearly angry—reasonable—and dumbfounded.

“This is why you left.”

Jose ducked his head, flushing shamefully. “I was rejected for the Barcelona job. I thought if I had it, well. We could have made something work, permanently. I thought that maybe,” He swallowed and brushed some dust off the velvet box with his thumb. “Maybe you would have said yes—maybe you loved me, too. But when it was clear I had to leave, I had to. I couldn’t—“ he waved his hand to distract the choke that came from his throat and his eyes were fixated on the floor. He stopped for a long moment to collect his thoughts. Pep was sitting in stunned silence.

“I was foolish for that. I had many successes in those years which I far from regretted. I never seriously dated anyone after you. I still had the ring. I couldn’t. I loved you, more than anything.”

Pep was still staring at him emotionlessly. He remembered, vaguely, an anniversary of sorts where he was close, so close to telling Jose that he loved him. What had stopped him?

“I won’t forgive you for leaving without telling me,” he began slowly. The pain ebbed away years ago it seemed. Jose shifted from a love, to a visceral hate, a numbness, eventually an enigma and back again. He was too old now to stop himself from feeling the whirlwind of emotions Jose evoked in him. He was tired of it.

“But I know it was something you had to do. I found out about your Barcelona application years ago, it makes more sense now.”

He sighed and cupped Jose’s cheek, tilting it upwards to really _look_ at Jose. The Portuguese man’s eyes were stubbornly glassy.

“Despite both of our emotional reticence, the decade without speaking, and those horrible years in Spain,” he kissed Jose softly on the mouth for a long moment. He felt a wetness on his cheek. “I would have said yes. I’m saying yes now.”

(In bed that night, Pep couldn’t keep his lips off Jose as if memorize the contours of his face with them if he went blind the next day.

“Next question please.” Jose said dully.

“Mr. Mourinho, were you in attendance for the Guardiola wedding? Pep has recently referred to you as a dear friend of his.”

Jose grinned crookedly, this presser was starting to actually get interesting. “Of course I was. Pep has questionable taste in friends.” His tone was light, the dig coming nowhere close to a true insult. The cool metal of his ring rest on his chest on a hidden chain.

“Follow up: were you the best man?”

Jose actually laughed and toyed with the chain. “Of sorts. No more questions about Pep, please. Only the game.” Jose did like to tease his reveals, after all. It was a good time to begin dropping hints.

“You should wear white.” Pep said absently, flipping through his post-match notes on the other side of the room from where Jose sat, moping into a beer about his most recent match draw.

“No.”

“Oh no, you should. Since you did fuck off to Madrid.”

Jose buried his face in his hands and groaned. “Two things,”

“I’m listening.”

“One, I in no way regret that job. Two, I am having a bad week, shouldn’t you be comforting me instead of implying I’m your wife?”

Pep made a show of pondering this. “I’m not going to comfort you on the draw, since we agreed to avoid talking about our clubs specifically. But, I promise it’s because I think you look sexy in white. Believe me, I am marrying you because you are very much my husband.” He locked his notes away again and put his hands on Jose’s shoulders, massaging lightly. Jose whimpered pathetically and leaned into the touch.

“I would be happy, however, to comfort you in other ways.” He hotly scraped his teeth over Jose’s earlobe.

Jose developed the habit shortly after the wedding and the particularly nosy press conference of posting photos of Pep on his Instagram when they were in public. He caught Pep looking up at him flatly from across a café table and captioned it “the married man” and added at least three emojis, which he found endlessly satisfying and Pep certainly did not.

“Do you really have to do that?” Pep grumbled, stirring the milk foam resting on the top of his latte a little forcefully. Jose shrugged.

“I only get to have a few more weeks of privacy before we go public during the summer. I enjoy the speculation. It distracts from sixth place.”

Pep snorted. “And social media is private?”

Jose scrolled through the comments that were already pouring in. Some nasty ones about him as a coach—typical, whatever—some anti-gay slurs, sure, he would be getting many more of those soon—and a few ardent defenders of their perceived relationship. Huh.

“It’s on my terms. Besides, it was a good picture of you, you ought to be flattered.”

They have a Catholic ceremony after all. Pep doesn't even have to convert. It's more of a show than it is a wedding-- Manel and Rui are in attendance, more like witnesses than guests. They stand at the altar in front of the priest in a beautiful, ornate church in downtown Barcelona. The priest speaks in Catalan to the husband-and-husband, one in black and the other in white.

(At the Manchester derby, they shake hands cordially before the match. Away from the cameras, Jose winks at him. Pep hides his smile with his hand and focuses on the match. Tradition holds, and Mourinho ends the match with ten men and a zero-zero tie.)

"Next season is my season." Jose mutters in bed that night, a little sour since he'll be missing even more players for the rest of his league games and the Europa League. Pep snorts, flicking Jose's ear affectionately. "No, I don't think so. It is going to be mine, and that's something we cannot share."

That was Jose's preference, anyway. It was far too sentimental to say aloud, but as long as he came home and Pep was there with the ring snug around his finger, Jose could say he had at least one trophy. Pep kisses Jose's forehead before he falls asleep, as if he knew full well what Jose was thinking.

He probably did.

**Author's Note:**

> Saltstreets, I love all your fics and I really, really hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
